Anne’s grin widens as she takes a step towards the robot. “What are you doing all the way out here?” She asks friendlily.
“Don't rightly know, I just got the notion to make my way to New Vegas, reckon I'll find out when I get there.” He said in tinny sounding southern accent.
“Ah, I almost forgot.” Anne said, taking a step to the side, gesturing to Twilight with a tilt of head her. “This right here is a friend I made just after leaving Goodsprings, Twilight Sparkle.”
Twilight blushes but smiles sheepishly, not knowing how to feel about the new creature before her. “H-hi.” She says.
“And this Twilight is Victor, he saved my life only a few days before I met you.” Anne said, pointing to the large robot, the woman only going halfway up the screen in height.
“Well hello there little one, ain’t you a cute thing.” Victor says, the face on his screen flickering slightly. “You heard from Anne here that I’m Victor.”
Twilight’s blush deepens at being called cute and Anne snickered quite loudly. “I-I don’t mean to be rude but what exactly are you?” Twilight asks nervously.
“I'm a Securitron, RobCo security model 2060-B if you ever see any of my brothers tell them Victor says howdy.” Victor says without missing a beat.
“He’s a robot princess.” Anne clarified upon seeing twilight’s confused expression.
“Robot? I thought they were only in science-fiction books.” Twilight said just as confused as before.
“Victor isn’t the only one we’ll see, some are friendly such as the Securitrons as long as you don’t do anything bad but there are some that are security robots that will either instantly start attacking us or they’ll warn us before attacking us.” Anne explains.
“What do you mean security robots?” Twilight asks confused.
“Well, before the war that caused the world to be the way it is now some people instead of paying security guards to look after their buildings and stuff buy a robot in one go instead of the salary of an actual person.” Anne explained. “They’re quite hard to kill, unlike living things you can shoot both its legs and it’ll stop coming after you but a robot will come after you till it has stopped working altogether which is very bad when ten of them are going after you at once and they can range from small things with enough firepower to scare a mouse and others that are moving tanks.”
“Is Victor one of the walking tanks as you put it? He is very big.” Twilight ask, looking over Victor’s details.
“No, that’s the, umm, what are they called again? Yeah, their called sentry bots and if you ever find yourself pitted against one of them run as fast as you can in the opposite direction, they would wipe the floor with both of us combined.” She said.
“Are they really that bad?”
“Definitely, you’re more likely to just get hit by bullet that was fired off straight into the sky than you are to win a battle against one of them and sometimes there are more than one of them at once.”
“Alright, that’s good to know…”
Anne smiles and turns back to Victor the robot. “So what’s the story with this place?” She asks.
“Novac? Nice enough place I suppose… But between you and me, when I rolled into town my skin started to itch. Watch yourself.” He said, his metallic voice lowering slightly in warning.
Anne nods slightly at that bit of information before a smile broke back out onto her face. “Anyway, it’s nice to see a friendly face out here.” She states.
“Likewise friend, likewise. Is there anything old Vic can do you for?” He asks.
“We could use a bed and some supplies if you know where we can get them.” Anne answered.
“Well, this ain’t New Vegas but I reckon you can find what you need here, try the office out front.” He said.
“Thanks Victor, Twilight and I will head off now, it’s starting to get dark and I would prefer to have an indoor bed to use, and I think the little one would appreciate it as well.” Anne said with a thankful smile.
“Yeah, an actual bed and nod mats on the ground sound quite nice.” Twilight agrees. “It was nice meeting you Victor.”
“Be seeing you two.” He said, lifting one of his tube arms in a wave as the two friends made their way towards the front office connected to the motel rooms.
“Well, he seemed nice, he wasn’t like any robot I read about in my books back at home.” Twilight said as she walked along side Anne.
“Yeah, he’s nice enough but everyone I talked to in Goodsprings where he stayed told me that there was something strange about him, and him being here as well as us seems mighty fishy to me, or it might just be a big old coincident but I don’t know, I hope it is.” Anne said, pushing open the office door and walking in.
The room was a small on, just holding a large built in desk with a few other things around the place like a flickering vending machine and dirty and worn rug too small for the size of the room. The once white paint was grey and peeling off the walls in large parts, more wood and plaster visible than the paint itself. The florescent lights on the farthest part of the room weren’t working, leaving them in the shadows. A radio sat on a small table was playing music through the room at a calming volume. A copper colored sealing fan spun around lazily, trying to cool down the room with the quite hot heat of the Mojave outside. On the desk were the normal things one would expect, things like a cash register and an ashtray but the odd things were the small toy dinosaurs neatly in a row.
A middle aged woman with small reading glasses and a worn green dress sat behind the counter, her graying hair tied into a bun behind her head. Upon approaching the desk Anne could see the behind the desk was a safe built into the floor but Twilight wasn’t tall enough to see and had to stand on her rear hooves and rest her front ones against the desk to see the woman.
“Well, welcome to you, you both look tired from the road. Why don’t you relax a spell, let this fine town take care of you?” The woman asks with a soft smile, adjusting her glasses.
“Hello.” Twilight said with a smile, finally happy she met someone who seemed to be friendly without anything crazy about her. “I’m Twilight and this is Anne.” She greeted.
“Oh, what am I doing? I got to thinking about making a good impression and plain forgot to tell you my name.” She said, looking at Twilight apologetically. “I’m Jeannie May, I take care of folks here at the hotel, long as they aren’t trouble makers.” She said.
Twilight’s smile widened, she definitely liked this person even though they just met. “So, what is this place exactly?” Anne buts in.
Jeannie looked to the woman, her soft smile still there. “We’re in our little desert oasis, name of Novac. This is the Dino Dee-lite Motel and it’s mine.” She said happily.
“I’m looking for a man in a checkered coat, have you seen anyone like that?” Anne asks.
“Well he might’ve been wearing a fancy outfit, but he wasn’t any type of gentleman to me.” She stated, the first time her smile faltered. “Had his nose stuck so high in the air you couldn’t see it above the clouds. City folk, they always think they deserve better than what they got. Those hoodlums he was with seemed to Manny for some reason, he’s our daytime sniper up in the up in the dinosaur’s mouth.” She said.
Anne nodded slightly, knowing that those ‘hoodlums’ were the Great Khans that she heard mention of following the checker suited man. “Thank you, now where might we find supplies?” Anne asks, finally changing the subject to a more pleasant one.
“Go see Cliff Briscoe at the Dino Bite Gift Shop, and tell him I sent you. I think he gets lonely standing around in that dino belly all day, he’ll be glad for the company.” She said, her smile coming back.
“And finally so we can get out of your hair can we please rent a room for the night?”
“Well I think that’s a fine idea, I’ll give you a good flat rate and you can stay as long as you like, least until the busy season comes, sound good?” She said.
“Yeah, that sounds great, how’s a hundred caps for the room?” Anne asked, pulling a pouch from a side pouch of her large bag.
“That’s perfect, I’m glad you both can stay with us.” She said taking the small bag offered to her and putting it into the cash register. “Your room will be the one upstairs, closest to the lobby side.” She says grabbing a key from on the desk and handing it out to Anne. “Here’s your key, let me know if there’s anything I can do to make both your stays better for you.”
Anne grabs the key and gives the woman a smile though it was lost behind her helmet while Twilight visibly smiled at the old woman. “Thank you Jeannie, it was nice to meet you.” Twilight says as she follows Anne out of the office.
“It was nice to meet you too young one.” The old woman’s voice could be heard called out back to the pony.
“Well, she seemed even nicer than Victor.” Twilight stated with a smile.
Anne removed her helmet, carrying it under one of her arms. “I have to agree with you there, but I have to agree with Victor on this one and say something doesn’t seem right about this place, too happy for the wasteland.” Anne said. “But until I know more let just say it’s a happy place here.” She said dismissively, climbing up the stairs to the room that Jeannie told them was theirs for a while.
Sliding the small metal key into the lock Anne pushes the room open and what she saw actually pleasantly surprised her. Although the carpet was terribly stained to the point it looked like someone had a case of spontaneous combustion with the dark browns staining the deep red carpet and the paintings that were on the walls were nothing but the frames it had its own charm with the teddy bear at the foot of the bed or the meal that was ready on a built in table nearby with a safe built into that.
“Huh, this place is actually better than I thought, no wonder Jeannie took pride in this place.” Anne said chucking her helmet onto a couch that was right next to the bed.
On the built in table was also a TV but Anne guessed that there wasn’t any power to go into it and no channels would be operating anymore. But one thing that Anne could tell was working if the soft humming it was making was any indication was the fridge. Going over to it Twilight goes over to the bear and picks it up, glaring faintly at it and whispered softly to it. “You think you can replace Mister Bear? Well no you can’t because Mister Bear is my only bear.” Twilight said, sticking out her tongue at the toy before using her magic to throw the bear onto a hat stand by the door to the room.
Anne was busy checking through the fridge, grinning at what she saw. “Hey Princess, guess what I found?” Anne said, looking over her shoulder at Twilight.
“What is it?”
Anne turns around and faces the pony, a large bottle of Whisky in one hand and a large clear bottle of Vodka in the other. “Up for a little party?” The human offered, smile on her face.
Twilight gave her friend a flat look before her magic surrounded the bottles and they quickly slid down out of Anne’s hands and smashed into the ground, breaking instantly into tiny shards of glass from the force.
“No.”